Trick Or Treat?
by Rule23
Summary: When George needs help with a project, Hermione gets more than she bargained for.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise.

This fic was written for ViolaMoon's birthday! Have a fabulous day!

* * *

Trick or Treat?

The common room was loud. People were chattering, someone was playing a violin, and a weird wailing noise kept coming from a black sack Fred and George were huddled over. Hermione didn't mind the noise too much, though; she'd already finished the desperately tricky equations that were due for Arithmancy, completed the anatomical drawings required by Professor Grubbly-Plank, already outlined the Potions essay she was saving for the weekend, and practiced the transfigurations she'd learnt earlier that day. Well, she'd practised the wand movements; she wasn't about to try turning Crookshanks into a cake stand.

Ron and Harry hadn't completed any of their work, but we're happily not doing it all the same. She could never understand the barbaric appeal of wizard's chess or why it frequently took precedence over homework. She supposed she'd never get it. Just like she didn't get Quidditch.

The bag in the twins' hands wailed again, an unearthly sound that set the hairs on the back of her arms standing on end. She'd tried ignoring them, tried to focus on her book instead, but the noise wouldn't leave her alone. George spotted her staring and sent a wink her way. A decidedly cheeky wink.

He'd been doing that a lot recently. Sending her smiles across the common room, holding doors open for her as he passed. It would be flattering if it weren't for the underlying doubt. The worry that it didn't mean anything. The worry that he was just being nice, or worse - much, much worse - that it was just a joke. Something he thought of as a harmless prank. She didn't think she could bear that.

Instead of smiling back at him, she stood and went over to the pair.

"Don't worry, Granger, we're not doing anything we shouldn't be," Fred said, barely looking up at her as she arrived at their table.

"I didn't think you were." She folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow at him.

"'Course not," George said giving her a lazy smile and pushing out the chair opposite him with his foot. "Why don't you join us? We could do with a little help."

"Will I get a cut of the profits?" Hermione asked, smirking.

"If you can get it working, you can have all the profits."

"Steady on, Forge! You can't just promise away _our_ hard-earned galleons!" Fred was smiling as he said it.

"Half?" George asked his brother.

"Half," Fred agreed.

George turned back to Hermione. "You can have half the profits from this if you help us get it working."

"I was joking."

"I didn't know you could joke, Granger," Fred said.

She rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored him. "I don't want your money."

"Fair pay for fair help." George held out a hand. It was warm and dry when she took it in her own.

"What's the problem then?" she asked.

George put the bag on the table. It looked like the kind she used to take her PE kit in when she was in primary school. A Muggle-style ghost was stitched in purple on the front and the drawstrings were in the same lurid shade.

"Have you ever heard of Trick or Treating?" Fred asked.

"Don't be a pillock," George said, elbowing his brother in the ribs. "She's Muggleborn. If even Dad's heard of it, she must know about it."

"Wait," Hermione said, holding up a hand. "Wizarding children _don't_ go Trick or Treating? It's amazing. It was the only time of year I could get my hands on sweets with actual sugar in them."

George gave Fred an "I told you so" look and Fred clutched his hand to his chest.

"No sugar! Why you poor dear. Have a sweet." Fred produced a round, fat toffee from his pocket and offered it to her.

"If you think I'm taking any food from you, Fred Weasley, you're barmy."

He tucked the sweet away, grinning to himself.

"Anyway," George continued, "Dad told us about Trick or Treating and how it's so inconvenient for wizarding families to Trick or Treat amongst each other."

"Sure, you could do it in Hogsmeade or Diagon, but most of us live out in the sticks. And travelling with kids is tricky-" Fred elbowed his twin at the pun, "at the best of times."

"So, we thought it would be a cool idea to turn a Trick or Treating bag-"

"Popular with Muggle-folk the world over-"

"Into a bag that Trick or Treats _you_!"

"You prod the ghost and it's supposed to say 'Trick or Treat!' But instead-"

"It just wails."

Fred prodded the ghost and it let loose the hair-raising wail.

"And then what does it do?" Hermione asked.

"It gives you a sweet," Fred said.

"Three-quarters of the time, it's a nice sweet." George grinned at her. "And the rest of the time, it's something really nasty."

"Like what?"

"Now that would spoil the fun, wouldn't it Granger?" Fred asked.

"And how do you get the sweet?"

"Now, that's the really clever part," Fred said.

"So clever, we can't get it to work. The idea is to put an Undetectable Extension Charm on the bags and combine that with a randomising charm. You prod the ghost, it says its thing, a sweet is kicked out of the extension and hey presto! You've got yourself a neatly packaged Trick or Treating experience for all the family to enjoy."

"Or at least that'll be the idea when it works. They'll be sold with either fifty, one hundred, or two hundred uses and you can send them in for refills."

"That's actually pretty clever," Hermione admitted. It was amazing they didn't manage to get more OWLs between them.

"_Actually_?" George asked. "_Actually_? You wound me, Hermione. Our brilliance should hardly come as a surprise."

"Do you want my help or not?" Hermione asked, barely restraining a grin.

"Fine!" George said, throwing up his hands. "Your shock at our intelligence is perfectly valid given your experience. Now will you help us?"

"Oh, alright."

She pulled the bag towards her and ran over it with a few of her favourite diagnostic charms.

"I'll have to double check this in the library," she said as Fred rolled his eyes, "but I think you've over-animated the ghost. It's taken on more personality than it should have and, well, it's dead so it's depressed."

"Hence the wailing!" George's eyes lit up. She couldn't help but admire the amber flecks that danced in his brown irises.

"Hence the wailing," Hermione agreed.

* * *

Hermione sat in the library pouring over a book of jinxes, a series of arithmantical calculations scribbled onto a sheet of parchment.

"That doesn't look like homework, Hermione." The whispered words made her jump. George was grinning as she turned to look at him.

"You should look into getting a bell."

"But that would take all the fun out of sneaking up on people."

He sat down next to her.

"Who are you trying to jinx?" he asked, pulling her book towards him.

"No one specific. It's for…" she lowered her voice even further, "the defence meeting this weekend. I want to make sure people can't tell anyone else. But I can't get the equation right!"

"Wicked." George grinned at her. "Speaking of clandestine magic practice, we should carve out some time to work on the extension charm. Need to get it sorted before Halloween if we want to put on a show."

They agreed to meet after dinner the following day and George got up to leave.

"Your problem's here," George said, tapping her parchment. "You haven't moved a variable across."

She looked down at her work and damn it all if he wasn't right! When she looked up to say thank you, he was gone and a purple sweet sat on the table beside her.

She popped it in her mouth without thinking. It was only much later that she realised nothing strange or unusual had happened when she'd eaten it.

GWHG

They worked with each other through most of October. Sometimes Fred would join them, but for the most part it was just her and George.

"I'm better with wandwork," George had explained when she'd asked about Fred's absence. "And Fred is better at the potions side of things."

She enjoyed having a problem to sink her teeth into and liked talking to George. She already knew that he was smart and funny, but the signature Weasley twin banter was so much more fun when she got to participate.

With less than a week to go before Halloween, they cracked the charm and had to manually test the bag. So far, they'd had three normal sweets and Hermione's hand shook a little as she reached out and prodded the ghost.

"Trick or Treat?" the ghost asked her.

"Umm treat?" she said and plunged her hand inside the bag.

The sweet she pulled out looked just the same as all the rest - a small cylinder wrapped in green and purple foil. She unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth. Barely a suck later, her skin began to tingle and George burst into giggles.

She was green. She transfigured her parchment into a mirror and checked her face. Her nose had grown long and gnarled, her hair was black straw, and she had a wart on her chin! She couldn't help but join him in laughter. She looked just like a Muggle's idea of a wicked witch.

George took the next sweet and immediately began to sprout thick brown fur, his eyes turned yellow, his canines lengthened.

"Awhoooo!" The howl was ripped from his throat and ended in laughter.

"I'll get you, my pretty!" Hermione said. "And your little dog too!" She let loose her best cackle - like the ones she'd practised as a child - as George checked himself out in the mirror.

"Nice! It looks just like a Muggle costume." He offered her a hairy palm and she slapped it in a high five.

"One of the things I really miss about Muggle Halloween is the costumes," Hermione said, her tone soft and wistful to her own ears.

"Even with the feast and everything?"

"_Especially_ with the feast. It's the perfect opportunity for some fancy dress." She imagined Dumbledore would out-dress all the students. "I used to spend hours and hours putting my costumes together."

"Which was your favourite?" He sat down on the desk and patted the surface beside him with a hairy hand.

"Well, it's not very scary," she said as she hopped onto the desk next to him, "but one year I decided to go as a cauldron."

"A cauldron? Like for potions?" She nodded. "How in the name of Merlin's saggy left buttock did you manage that?"

She rolled her eyes at the colourful language. She'd never understood the fascination with Merlin's various… bits.

"I made a huge papier-mâché cauldron with leg holes and filled it with packing peanuts I'd painted green! I dressed in brown and pretended to be a ladle!"

"Papier what now?"

"Papier-mâché! It's when you use newspaper and glue to make a shell of some kind. If you stick the paper in layers to a balloon, you can pop the balloon once it's dry and you end up with a round shape."

"That must have been an enormous balloon!"

"It was," Hermione said, nodding seriously. "And I was smaller then."

"How much smaller?"

"I think I'd just turned six. So…" She indicated to about waist height. "Hang on, how do you not know papier-mâché but packing peanuts doesn't phase you?"

"Dad," George said with a shrug.

"Fair enough." She twisted to look at him properly. "What did you do for Halloween? As a kid, I mean?"

"Honestly, we never did much. It wasn't until we started at Hogwarts that we realised it was a Big Deal. Mum always used to go out to the woods on Samhain, but we were never invited." He screwed up his face in an uncanny impression of his mum and screeched, "That's women's magic, Georgie. It's nothing to do with the likes of you."

"I can never find any books about it. I guess it's probably one of those things that's handed down mother to daughter." She couldn't suppress her sigh.

"Ah, don't you worry, Hermione." He elbowed her lightly in the waist. "Mum will take you out into the woods with her when she teaches Ginny. She's probably got it all planned out."

Hermione grinned. She hadn't even thought about that. It seemed like too much to presume.

"I reckon I'd love a good Muggle-style Halloween party," said George. "All those unsuspecting people already dressed like prats. Easy pickings for a prankster. Can you imagine if we spiked the punch so people could only talk like their costumes?"

"People chanting lines of Macbeth or only being able to howl?" She moved her hands in circles above an imaginary cauldron. "Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble." They looked at each other's temporary costumes and collapsed into giggles.

They were slumped against one another when they stopped laughing.

"We should probably get back to the common room," Hermione said. "It's nearly curfew."

"Yeh," George agreed.

For a moment longer than necessary, neither of them moved.

* * *

A poster went up the next day on the Gryffindor noticeboard: _Post-Feast Halloween Party! Wear your scariest costumes and help us celebrate the Muggle way! It'll be a scream!_

It was the talk of the common room.

"Party? Wicked!"

"Whose idea was it?"

"What are you gonna wear?"

"Do you think I can get an owl home and back in time?"

"Par-tay!"

"You wanna go?"

Hermione struggled to keep the smug smile off her face. Being a prefect certainly had its perks.

"What are the odds?" George said from behind her.

"The odds of what?" asked Ron, appearing on her other side.

"Well," George said, "I was just saying the other day that I really fancy a Halloween party and here we are."

"I'd say those odds are pretty remarkable," said Hermione.

"Truly remarkable." George's hand found her own and squeezed it briefly before letting go.

"I'm confused," said Ron. "Breakfast?"

Hermione couldn't keep the smile off her face as she followed Ron out of the portrait hole.

* * *

When the day arrived, Hermione was so excited she couldn't focus on anything. She'd arranged for the common room to be draped in fake cobwebs, paper bats, and glowing jack-o'-lanterns. Her dad had owled a bunch of his old records for them to play on Professor Flitwick's gramophone - he was sure to include the Monster Mash and Purple People Eater - and Professor Dumbledore had donated dishes of Muggle sweets.

It was going to be amazing. She was determined.

She'd put the finishing touches on her costume the night before.

"Sit down, Hermione," Harry said as he pulled a treacle tart towards him. "I know you're excited, but you're making me nervous."

She wasn't standing exactly, more just hovering nervously above the bench.

"Sorry," she said sitting down. "I just want it to go well!"

"Why?" Ron asked through a mouthful of jelly.

"Because I've never organised something like this before."

"_You_ organised the party? How come?" Ron asked.

"Oh, err…" Her cheeks warmed and she did her best not to glance down the table to where a certain someone sat. "I just thought it would be nice for everyone."

"It's a great idea!" Harry said, patting her on the shoulder. "I've never had the chance to go to a Halloween party before. And it's so great that we can make costumes with magic! So much better than buying crappy Muggle ones!"

"Yeh! Brilliant, 'Mione!" Ron chimed in.

Hermione beamed at her two best friends. She'd be forever grateful that troll picked _her_ cubicle all those Halloweens ago.

* * *

The party was in full swing. People were dancing and admiring each other's costumes, laughing at the more ridiculous ones. Hermione kept scanning the crowd, careful not to disrupt the green packing peanuts filling her cauldron, but she couldn't find the person she most wanted to see.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Trick or treat?" George said next to her ear, raising the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.

She turned and found him dressed almost identically to herself, dressed in brown inside a big black pot filled with lurid green packing peanuts.

"Treat," she said. And, without pausing to think about it, she threw her arms around his neck, paying no heed to their squashed cauldrons, and pulled him into a kiss.

Neither of them noticed Ron and Harry gawking at them for quite some time.

* * *

THE END


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